Timid only in repose
by Quiara
Summary: Bahorel has a fling with the local poet, and likes it. See also: Good Humor and Bad Company


(The other side of http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=622619) 

He laughs when I call him a beautiful boy, but sometimes, I think he knows what I mean. Sweet of voice, smooth-skinned, gentle-fingered, he is a lad who plays the flute and composes verses with his head pillowed on my shoulder. I am no help in that endeavor; I tend to suggest lewd couplets in hopes of ending his stanzas earlier, but he forgives me when he has written down the good parts. There is a certain delicacy about him, but he would blush if I tried to explain that. What words are there for a boy like him that are not effeminate and taunting? I don't know, so I don't try to find them. His company is pleasant enough that I don't need to justify my desire for him. 

He has distracted me from my usual haunts -- the ladies of the evening ply their trade on other deep-pocketed gentlemen for the next several months, if I can keep him that long. I've even given up on the republican boys who introduced me to him, the most fragile member of their fraternity. Other clusters of politically minded men will suffice for as long as this lasts, and he can make his excuses to his brothers. I couldn't stand to listen to their prattle with him in the room, not when I could be listening to him gasp instead. Other men can chatter with me and give their grandiose speeches and buy me wine. I know I'll see him at the end of the evening, however long an evening it is, because sweet Jehan is a patient man, while he is clothed. 

Naked, he still blushes, but it does not impede him nor slow him down. I haven't yet begun to tire of the feel of his skin. He is a delicate creature, all silken skin that trembles under my hands. When I am in a patient mood, I often exult in the way he feels for a long while. On mornings after nights like those, he's often glad he owns a dark cravat, because his fair skin bruises easily and a white one might not hide the marks I leave on his neck. I can't say that they are wholly unintentional. If he finds himself a darling girl to replace me, let him explain away the evidence of a past lover, or at least let him wait until he has forgotten me to some extent before he takes her to bed. 

Unlike me, he is unforgettable. He teases me with words and hands as mercilessly as I tease him, and it would be hard to say which of us has less resolve. He told me, near the beginning of all of this, that he had never been to bed with another man, but it was hardly a trial to teach him; less so, perhaps, than if he had an unpleasant experience, or only the brash, impetuous lovers that he might have attracted as a young boy. I don't deny that I'm impetuous, but there are certain things which should not be rushed, and pleasure is one of them. Watching his climax makes me burn with desire, but tormenting him to the edge of it and then slackening off is better. For one thing, when all proceeds at his preferred pace, he is relatively quiet -- embarrassed, perhaps, to sound like he's enjoying himself. I dislike silence in bed; I would much rather hear him ask me for what he wants. When he is desperate, I can convince him to beg me. If he knew how he sounds, saying such things, asking me to take him in my mouth or to simply take him, however I want him, he would be less recalcitrant about it. 

I suspect that he knows I can refuse him nothing -- for more than several minutes at a time. I was careful of him, at first, and he was far more careful of my sensibilities than he needed to be. It took too many nights for us to come to the understanding that this endeavor is based upon mutual pleasure, and that, as such, there is nothing he could request of me that would offend me to the point of ending this. If by some hidden, dark perversion he were to come upon such an idea, I could refuse him as easily as he could refuse me should I request anything unpleasant of him. 

It also took too long to work out that he enjoys having me inside him approximately as much as I enjoy fulfilling that desire. It was a lovely discovery for both of us; I had been skirting the issue, afraid that he would be wary of such a suggestion, and he had been loath to bring it up from that same fear of giving offense. I understand that fear to some extent; the converse act is not something I have the courage to allow him to perform. Clearly it is more pleasing than it is painful, but it is not something that I desire enough to attempt. 

I have come to the point where I am accustomed to him and the mind muddling desire he causes in me. When I see him laugh, I think of kissing him; I think of his mouth on my body, pleasing me. I regret leaving his bed, and I regret it when he leaves mine. Of course I regret these things, when I have known such joy with him. I often think of him when we are apart, and he has said on several occasions that he often thinks of me. Given the number of evenings that we spend in each other's company, it is quite sensible that we should think of each other and the coming night. I understand how much I want him, that he wants me in return, and that this colors a great deal of our time together and apart. 

This bright flame of passion will burn itself out; he will tire of my incessant demands on his time and body; I will doubtless grow weary of his quiet public self and wish that he could be half so abandoned in company as he is in my arms, where there is no one else to hear. If he would but speak louder, if he would but shout when he means to make a point, so that his headstrong friends would not ignore him -- but he will not, and I know he will not, so I don't ask. I take pleasure in him now, all the more because this is ephemeral. I would not miss a rendezvous with him for the prettiest girl in the quarter, but she will meet him soon and seduce him into writing her poetry. I'll let him go, then, not gladly, but without much grief. 

We've talked about the impermanence of our liaison from time to time -- I brought it up, because I would not see him hurt by this, when some grisette turns my head, and one will. We both know that we are together for the sake of shared lust, and that that is enough. It will not be a great tragedy when this dissolves and we are merely friends, for we have talked more in aftermaths and moments of respite than we had spoken in public. We are better friends now than we had been beforehand. It only adds to my estimation of him that we have shared a bed. 


End file.
